Is New Zealand falling behind in the drone arms race?

Source: Radio New Zealand

A retired major general says New Zealand is “tinkering” with military drones while other countries forge ahead.

Australia and the US last month ramped up their drone rollout plans. But observers and industry players doubt that next week’s Budget will deliver any significant gear change here.

“I do not expect to see that in this Budget,” said John Howard, who has also held high-level intelligence posts and writes analyses on how to speed up defence acquisitions.

“I don’t expect it to grow,” said Philip Solaris of drone-maker Obsidian Systems, adding what was key was less the size than the spending smarts.

Howard said defence was stuck in an old, slow approach to fast-moving new tech, an opinion reinforced by a New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) meeting he was at in Wellington last week that he said left tech companies guessing how emerging tech would move from plans to reality.

“We’re going to trial drones in 2026? It’s a little bit like saying, ‘I’d like to trial a Toyota Corolla.’ These things are out there and they’ve been going for 20 years.

“So let’s have a different think about it. [Instead] you’d put them on ops, use them and destroy them.”

24,000 percent

The NZDF spent under $3 million on drone experiments in its science and tech unit in the last two years, according to documents released under the Official Information Act (OIA) to ex-army officer Graeme Doull.

A second OIA response said that as of March, NZDF had not developed any strategic documentation around drone projects.

“That wouldn’t surprise me given the nature of how government agencies in our small capital think about strategy,” Howard said.

NZDF told RNZ on Wednesday that it put out a strategic statement about drones and counter-drones in March. This and the Defence Industry Strategy augmented “the direction for uncrewed systems outlined in the Defence Capability Plan”, it said.

“Uncrewed systems is an important area and will remain a high priority for DST [Defence Science and Technology] going forwards.”

Asked in a second OIA request for “any documentation” outlining the priority put on drone research, NZDF released a single page about 10 “science programmes” with two or three lines about each.

Those programmes pick their priorities from the Defence Capability Plan compiled well over a year ago. It envisaged in 2024-25 spending up to half a billion on autonomous systems by 2029. The government said last month that was the right level – though it added that was a floor, not a ceiling.

The Pentagon in its biggest shift on autonomous warfare last month announced it was seeking a 24,000 percent rise in spending on the DAWG (Defence Autonomous Warfare Group), from just half-a-billion dollars to $90 billion (all $NZ).

That is inside a record $2.5 trillion defence budget request that is encountering opposition.

Around the same time, Canberra doubled its counter-drone and drone spending for the next decade. In Taiwan, however, opposition parties worked to cut the defence budget, including domestic drone manufacturing investment.

‘If it’s not spent wisely, then it will never be enough’

The Trump-driven push to expand defence budgets was never going to be enough on its own, said several experts RNZ talked to, including Solaris.

“I think the question’s not really about how much, but how that money is spent, to be honest,” said Solaris. “If it’s spent very wisely, I think we can get real momentum and change happening.

“If it’s not spent wisely, then it will never be enough.”

Old systems were now struggling to cope with dispensing the new defence money and, according to geopolitical analyst Dr Del Carlini, were further handicapped by defaulting to old ideas of what worked.

“Warfare has fundamentally changed in Ukraine,” Carlini said.

“Instead of requiring big expensive tanks, naval vessels, aircraft, a smaller country is outfighting a much larger country by using cheaper weapons that are produced in the millions and cleverly procured and networked for maximum effect. Our country can play in that game.”

But the capability plan sent signals for Budget 2026 and other Budgets that were “pretty clear that they were going to spend on lots of the normal assets of war”, Carlini said. “Drones featured, but not in the scale that I believe they need to be.

“Our defence establishment is proving that it cannot see beyond its Wellington office windows.”

Doull wrote an op-ed last month titled ‘Enough tinkering’, calling for drones to be front and centre.

He illustrated the problem with a deal done by NZDF to this year test 14 various types of drones from Mt Maunganui firm Syos.

“The deal offers no solution for fixed-wing surveillance… no low-cost long range strike… no subsurface platforms… and, critically, it does not provide for the relatively unsophisticated low-cost systems capable of being fielded in massive volumes,” said Doull.

Counter-drone plans had alarming gaps too, with Doull noting how an Iranian-designed Shahed drone could hit Auckland’s Wiri fuel terminal, launched from well beyond the country’s defensive reach.

Defence scientists needed to get in beside military units and industry partners in a programme dominated by drones, he said. “Fighting both sides of the drone battle. Learning. Breaking things.

“For a small force such as the NZDF – limited in scale and operating under persistent fiscal constraint – drones represent a disproportionately important opportunity.”

NZDF said on Wednesday: “Defence also continues to invest in uncrewed systems and the recent announcement of the contract with Syos Aerospace (Feb 2026) is an example of this.”

‘Change will happen’ or ‘Missed opportunity’?

Though the Budget might not budge, Solaris saw signs the procurement system would change.

“That change will happen when the political will is there… I’ve seen the political will… I do think I’ve seen very strong signs of it being there.”

But Howard emerged from the NZDF-tech company meeting much more sceptical.

“Defence acquisition… remains unchanged,” he said.

Defence had hammered promises to work faster and smarter with companies over its seven-month-old industry strategy, that followed the $12 billion Defence Capability Plan’s debut over a year ago. The plan was cemented in a four-to-15-year future of large and rising sums of tax money for defence – most imminently, in Budget 2026 next week.

Howard said he spoke after the meeting to various firms that had come wanting to understand funding and engagement with NZDF’s information tech arm.

“It was a missed opportunity… What it didn’t deliver was a clear and immediate pathway to engage.”

No senior officers who could have provided “clarity” were there.

“We’re still tinkering around the edges.”

Ukraine made an offer last December to New Zealand to set up a drone-building joint venture, RNZ revealed on Monday. Officials were still considering it, the government said.

It would require a bilateral security arrangement to be signed first.

Carlini is a fan of a drone joint venture with Ukraine.

“We spend a billion dollars… we would be in the game straight away.”

Solaris is not a fan, arguing local technical talent was good enough, but what mattered was how they and defence collaborated.

“To the government’s credit, they have recognised the key issue of national logistical certainty and have encouraged international primes to partner with NZ companies to develop [this].”

Howard warned that done wrong, a Ukraine joint venture would send capital offshore: “Then it’s a double loss for New Zealand.”

A New Zealander of Ukrainian origin, Kate Turska, recently wrote in the Kyiv Post that smart countries were moving beyond supporting Ukraine to partnering with it as it built “one of the most advanced and fast-moving defense and security innovation ecosystems in the world”.

NZDF, asked by RNZ how it was assessing Ukraine’s offer, did not say.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Original source: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/05/21/is-new-zealand-falling-behind-in-the-drone-arms-race/